BOULDER, Colo. (KDVR) — Employees with the Museum of Boulder have continued to visit the memorial wall outside of the King Soopers on Table Mesa Drive to make sure items aren’t being damaged from weather.
“It’s spring in Colorado. We have these windy days and rain and snow and we’re really trying to protect the items,” Chelsea Pennington Hahn, a Curator of Collection at the Museum of Boulder said.
On Friday, several of the items were moved to a different side of the fence so an entrance to the parking lot shopping center could be re-opened. Museum employees helped moved items and also collected some that were damaged from the recent snowfall.
“If it was something handwritten in a card and it wasn’t attached to the fence, we have it, we have it here,” Lori Preston, the Executive Director of the museum said.
Preston said there would be days that items would be blowing down Table Mesa Drive because of the wind. Certain items, now at the museum, are being treated for damage. Items that were wet from the snowfall will sit out and dry on special paper to help absorb the moisture.
“We were grabbing things so they wouldn’t be gone,” Preston said.
The items will quarantine at the museum for two weeks so they are cleared of mold or other outside elements before heading to the museum’s permanent collection facility.
“It’s dark and we wish it didn’t happen but we have to remember dark parts of history,” Pennington Hahn said.
The City of Boulder and the museum are still working together to decide where a final memorial will be placed in the city and where the collected items will be housed. Preston stated they are looking to do an online catalog of the items or a display potentially in the museum.
“We collect, history happens and we collect these items so there is positive change,” Preston said.
If you left an item at the fence and you would like it back, the museum said you can contact them to pick it up.
While large parts of the memorial fence stay up, items that are brought into the museum that are dedicated specifically to a victim from the shooting will be organized together. If the families of the victims are interested in seeing or keeping those items they can collect them from the museum.
“If we find an object and it has a victim’s name we are putting those things together and categorizing those together,” Preston said.
Since the museum is looking to hold and preserve many items from the memorial fence, they are looking for donated climate control spaces. If you have a space you would let the museum use for a bit they would like you to contact them.